Would rather be lying there? No.
Though my pillow is a backwards-wound watch.

Cream linen of another country
where I lay in troth with you, hands pressed

to the wall, those pages . . .
Tonight, opium protocols of a full moon

blanch alluvial oak leaves.
Rather lie sheeted in frost there & pray

for the forgiveness of you,
absent friend? Yes. Yes. Words

failed me. O to swallow them
back. Rackety wind muslins the beeches,

illusion of a calendar in storm.
Autumn to winter. Turn again. Don't end.